It's About What You Need
by wonderwall05
Summary: God, she just needed someone to notice. She was so desperate, it was pitiful. He always could pick out the little things that no one else seemed to see. He would then torture her with them, but maybe she wanted to be tortured. At least it was something.


She had just wanted to feel like she was alive again. So, stupidly she had searched him out. Somehow she knew she would find him by the lake, which he would be gazing across, unwary to her approaching. There was no sense to her actions as she walked down the grassy hill towards him. Her heart began to tremor in her chest, and she didn't know. Didn't know why it was him that she looked for now. She wanted to run up behind him, and push. Make him stumble and watch his face as it twisted in anger. She wanted him to slip and fall, to slide down the little incline into the cold water. Maybe, she just didn't want him to resurface. Maybe she wanted him to drown with her.

But, even as her pace quickened just slightly, she knew she wouldn't do it. Instead she stopped beside him and looked out across the shimmering water that looked like anything but water as it reflected the moon, and the mountains and even their reflections back at them. He didn't acknowledge her presence and she felt a twinge inside her, because she wanted him to notice her, in any little way, whether it be a disparaging remark or his trademark smirk.

God, she just needed someone to notice. She was so desperate, it was pitiful. He always could pick out the little things that no one else seemed to see. He would then torture her with them, but maybe she wanted to be tortured. At least it was something.

She wanted to provoke his anger, yet she couldn't find the words. Instead she looked over the lake, following the meandering flight of some bird in the sky.

"You're not going to find what you're looking for here," He said without even glancing in her direction. His gaze appeared affixed on the bird flying overhead. She looked at his harsh profile. It glowed in the moonlight, his pale skin glistening.

"How can you be so sure?" Hermione replied, her voice obstinate. He could not say anything without her challenging him back.

"What did you expect?" He scoffed his voice derisive. "That you would come down here, and I would play into your little plan?" She swallowed heavily. "But, I won't. Not anymore, Granger." His voice was hard, determined. "Go find your sick thrill somewhere else." She felt that familiar anger rising within her, covering up a certain emptiness that his words created.

"You can't order me around, _Malfoy_," She spat out his name like a swear word, "This isn't your manor, and I won't do as you please." He showed no emotion at her words. No twinge in his features indicating a hidden rage. She hated him for his composure. He was supposed to be angry at her! He was supposed to call her petty little names, and let her hate him. "I can't stand your arrogance; you believe everyone should lie down before you, like you're some bloody king! Well you're not, Malfoy! You're not anything!" she was almost shouting.

"Just stop it, Granger!" He growled suddenly, turning towards her, and abandoning his watch of that bird in the sky. "Don't try and pin your problems on me! I'm not a bloody tack board for your issues!" His voice was heated, but it didn't hold the rage she craved. For a moment, she was stunned as always by the color of his eyes.

"My problems? My problems!" She knew she probably looked like a banshee, with her hair flying around messily in the breeze, and her eyes wide with anger, but she didn't care, she could almost feel it. "Draco Malfoy is lecturing me on problems?" His eyes darkened noticeably, and she saw his fist clench at his side.

"Granger – " He tried to interject.

"No! How dare you? After everything that has happened, you are the one that needs help! God, if it wasn't for your fucked up family, I would say you created all your problems." He had inched just the slightest bit forward. "But, no you just create the majority of them!" His eyes pierced into her, and she found herself panting just slightly.

"I won't do this anymore," He said slowly, as if explaining some difficult arithmancy equation to someone extremely dull. "I. Won't." Malfoy said quietly, but with passion, and then he simply walked away.

She expected him to glance back. She expected for the rage to rise up her throat, she expected to call him. But, instead she watched him go, wordless, and possibly a bit broken. As she turned around and left the lake, that same bird continued in its meandering flight above the lake.

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She felt the familiar feeling surround her and she had to get out. Harry and Ron sat nearby oblivious to the swell of emotions about to overtake her, like a wave. So, oblivious it hurt sometimes.

So, she got up and left without explanation, and she didn't care if they wondered where she was going. She stepped out the portrait hole and started running. Her feet pounded out a subdued rhythm on the rug covered stone.

It felt good, it felt free. She flew down the hallways, turning corners sharply uncaring for what awaited her. She relished each gasping breath, as it burned her lungs in a sharp way. She felt so human, so transitory, as her muscles bunched beneath her skin. It was a beautiful thing.

But, she was halted, jerked back into reality, as she crashed into a solid someone, whom cursed vibrantly.

She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, as she sat on the floor. Her back a bruising pain, that sent sparks through her mind. She felt a tug on her wrist, and she was unceremoniously heaved to her feet.

"What the hell is your problem!" Malfoy hissed, his voice malicious and infuriated. That was the question really, and Hermione was even more amused, and she felt a grin spread across her face. Malfoy seemed perplexed, his hand still gripping her wrist a little too tightly. He squinted at her, "Are you drunk, Granger?" He asked, and his voice was so serious, and maybe she was crazy. Call it impulse, call it hidden desire, call it whatever you wanted. But, she tore her wrist from his grasp, seized his face between her hands, and pulled his mouth to hers.

She didn't care about response, she didn't desire it; all she needed was contact with another flawed piece of the thing called humankind. And he was flawed just perfectly.

After a moment, she pulled back, separating herself from him. His eyes were clouded, and she couldn't read them. She felt herself coming down from whatever high she had just experienced. She turned to leave, but he grasped her wrist again, swinging her around, and forcing her body against the wall.

Her heart beat a rhythm she didn't know, and he pressed against her.

"I wasn't finished," He growled before he devoured her mouth, his body hard to her soft. She had not been expecting this. She decided to forget expectations.

She pressed back against him, matching his harsh, passionate movements with ones of her own.

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Hermione told herself she regretted it, she tried to forget the feel of his skin against hers. She dove into her studies with a fanaticism that seemed to even frighten her teachers. She would cleanse him from her soul.

He showed no changes. He didn't speak to her, didn't search her out. He didn't seem to remember it at all, and that rubbed her the wrong way, because she knew he wasn't really so austere. She had heard him pant. She had seen his face screwed up in new, exciting ways. She had done that to him. But, for all appearances it seemed like nothing had happened.

She wanted him shaken to the core like she was. She wanted to drag him down with her, to the little spot of her personal hell. God, she hated him. But, she wanted him as well.

When the moment did arise that he noticed her, Harry and Ron were at her side. The shame she knew she felt rose up and choked her and she couldn't speak to him. His eyes were cold as they viewed her, but his smirk held a new maliciousness. He picked out every piece of hurt and hurtled it back at her, and she could do nothing to stop him. But, she felt alive, as her eyes blazed, and she shouted words at him. She didn't notice how her boys looked at her like she was a wild thing, so unlike 'their' Hermione. Her world narrowed to him, and she cared for nothing else then trying to watch some flicker of pain cross his features. She was trying to force him to feel what she did. Even if she thought maybe he couldn't feel anything at all.

That night was the first time she sought him out. She raged against him, and he raged back. There was something harmonious about their anger, and it lit something within her. This time when she grabbed his face, he grabbed her right back, and there was nothing, yet, everything between them.

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She thought maybe, he hadn't meant his words, but she should've known better. He never minced words, they always meant something. He used so few, but when he spoke them they were voluminous.

But, she waited at the lake, hoping he would come find her, and pull her from the proverbial waters.

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It was a few years after the war, after their side had won, that she saw him again.

He was the same cold person, but now packaged in a man's body. He didn't acknowledge her besides a moment of eye contact. She felt her lungs contract, and she ducked into an alleyway to gasp. She thought she had rid herself of him, thought she had purged her soul of that need. She shook her head forcefully, curls flying across her face, before she pushed herself away from the wall.

Hermione stumbled to a halt as she saw the outline of the figure blocking the entrance to the alley way. The sun was behind his back, but she knew it was him, instinctively. She backed up just slightly, and he moved forward passing into the shadows. Finally she could see his face. His eyes seemed to glint with some amusement at her surprise.

"Granger," He said nonchalantly, nodding at her. Yet, his eyes were fixed on her in a way that showed his interest. She stood silently, merely trying to breathe properly, which was in it self pitiful. "Not going to say hello, Granger?" Malfoy's voice may have appeared light and teasing to the unobservant, but beneath it was a certain chill. Hermione felt it slide down her spine, and she resisted the urge to shiver.

"Malfoy…" Hermione said quietly, inclining her head. His mouth quirked up in the corner, a sorry excuse for a smile.

"Now, don't think you can summon up a little more than that...for an old friend," He purred the last words, and she could not fight the shiver. There was something so malicious about him, that she couldn't put her finger on.

"What do you want?" She whispered, her voice displaying all the sad little emotions she was feeling. She just didn't know how to deal with him anymore. His eyes flashed for a moment, and she wondered if he had been expecting some other sort of reaction.

"I've been reminiscing over the good ol' days," His voice was sharp enough to cut. "When I saw you, I realized what I wanted, which is to say, I'd like to restart our disturbing little situation."

"Disturbing little situation…how quaint," She said quietly, looking nervously at the ground. She waited for a spark of anger. "That's a shame, Malfoy, because that isn't what I want." She said forcefully. Hermione looked up; trying to keep her will iron. She watched as he grinned at her, his eyes silently mocking.

She had always been so weak, and he knew that.

"Now, now, _Hermione_," she immediately stiffened as her name rolled off his tongue. She wasn't sure if the flutter in her stomach was revulsion or pleasure. He moved closer and she found herself boxed against the wall without any recollection of getting there.

She wanted to collapse onto him, like she used to, when it could be mistaken for lust. When they had just moved together, and when he had held her up. He had kept her head above the water.

Hermione let her head droop, unable to meet his eyes. She didn't respond as his fingers grasped her chin, though a current of electricity ran through her body. He moved her face so she was forced to look into his eyes. He must see the effect he was having on her, and it didn't appear that he cared.

"What, Granger? Not willing to take up whenever I ask?" He questioned his tone deceivingly innocent and concerned. She looked away. It was a lightning bolt when it hit her. This was his revenge. This is what he tried to tell her all these years ago by the lake. She had used him, and he had tired of it. Now, she felt it to. "Of course, it would be our little secret, just between us." God, he was cruel.

"I was just a kid," She whispered, turning to face him again. But, he gave her nothing, his face a cold mask. She thought she saw something flash across his features. "Not good enough."

She slumped against the stone wall then, because it wasn't over. It hadn't ever been over. He had always had a part of her and she was helpless. She may have used him. But, she _had _needed him. There was a reason why he had been the one to leave, not her.

"I wonder what Potter and Weasley would do if they found out," He looked inquisitive, like he didn't know just how they would react.

"You wouldn't," She whispered, but he would. He smiled at her then; it was almost soft around the corners.

"You haven't changed," Malfoy said leaning in to brush his lips across her cheekbone, she shuddered. "But, the tables have turned," He murmured in her ear, his hot breath caressing the curve of her neck. "Thankfully, I have changed." He drew back and with one last look he was gone.

For days she couldn't shake the encounter. She felt like he would appear at any moment.

"Are you alright, 'Mione?" Ron asked, after sharing a look with Harry.

"Yeah, just stressed from work," that answer appeared to satisfy them because they started a conversation about Quidditch. She smiled slightly at them, but then she grimaced as she remembered _his_ words. It could so easily be taken away.

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Three weeks passed, just long enough for her to become comfortable again, when he showed up at her apartment. She opened the door expecting Harry or Ron, maybe even Ginny, but there he was. She had frozen hand on the door, mind trying to decide whether she could get away with slamming the door in his face. He reached out and casually placed a hand on the door, as if this position was just comfortable for him.

She sighed and turned her back. She walked into the kitchen and began to brew a pot of tea. Something to keep her distracted, her hands shook as she put the tea leafs into the strainer, and some floated to the ground.

He rested his hand on hers, and it was the softest gesture he had ever made towards her. She felt her spine curve at his gentleness. She was tired of lying to herself, just like she had tired of lying to her friends all those years ago.

Too tired for this.

He grasped her forearm and turned her around, his back was now against the counter. His features were cold, but maybe she had always read him wrong. He pulled her to him then, and she rested her head against the hollow at the base of his neck. His hand went and held her head.

"You can't keep running from this," He whispered and she didn't even care enough to argue. She had always been running, whether it was to him or from him, but she never stayed.

"I know, but I don't know if I can stop," Her voice was breathy and wet, and if he didn't see her tears, he could most certainly hear them in her voice.

Because it was all so hard, because sometimes she did hate him, and sometimes he was so cold and she felt too much. And Harry and Ron they would never understand if she told them, especially when they learned how long it spanned. Because he had left her once, and he had taken something with him, and she knew that he could do it again.

"We've been falling together ever since it started," He whispered, and she smiled against his now damp shirt.

"It doesn't seem fair," She replied.

"We never had a choice," He said and she liked that. It made it seem like fate, like destiny. Maybe they were meant to be together. Maybe this was right. "But, it's not exactly a decision I minded having made for me," She pulled in a quivering breath, because it sounded like an admission, like he felt something too besides the pull of fate. They stood there in silence even after the tea kettle began to voice harsh objections.

"They were wrong you know," She said, pulling back to look at his face.

"About what?" He asked his mouth quirked up at the corner (not so sorry of an excuse for a smile any longer.

"Not all good things in life are free," Hermione said, the corner of his eyes wrinkled even though his face seemed to remain bland. She was getting better at this.

And it would be hard and she would hate him sometimes, and he would hate her too. Harry and Ron, his world, they would all be angry for a bit, but everything has a price and something's can't wait.

Hermione stopped running; she stopped her endless journey so like that bird above the lake so many years ago, because she had found her course.

A/N: A little fic I wrote up today. I hope you like it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any affiliated characters.


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